“The good news is people are trying,” said Julie Weisenhorn, Extension horticulture educator. “People are being more careful when it comes to pesticides and the plants they chose to grow.”

To help gardeners, University of Minnesota Extension launched a pollinator landscape survey in 2017, the first university-based online tool of its kind. So far, more than 950 people have taken the five-minute survey.

The first year of the survey showed more gardeners stop and think before using pesticides. Nearly half never use them and more than a third reported they might use chemicals if they thought a plant was going to die from disease or insect damage.

“It shows that people are stopping and thinking about it before they’re reaching for the spray bottle,” Weisenhorn said. “In the past, people would say, ‘something is chewing on my leaves, I need to spray.’ Hopefully, they are first identifying what’s…